FORMER FINE Gael councillor Fred Forsey has been sentenced to six years with two suspended for taking bribes from a property developer.
The former deputy mayor of Dungarvan was convicted by a jury last month of taking €80,000 in bribes in exchange for lobbying his colleagues to rezone agricultural land for residential and industrial use.
Forsey (43) was caught when his estranged wife Jenny went to the Garda and told them about suspicious payments her husband had received. He later attempted to disguise the bribes as a loan by forging a backdated loan agreement with the developer.
Judge Gerard Griffin said he had no doubt that if the rezoning had gone ahead the industrial estate would be unoccupied and the residential houses would be “another ghost estate.”
Quoting the report of the Mahon tribunal, the judge said corruption was “a deeply corrosive force”.
“Corruption in public office is a fundamental breach of the trust of the electorate and incompatible with a democratic State.”
He said that rather than it being a victimless crime, the victims were “too numerous to identify individually”. Judge Griffin said Forsey had gravely breached the trust of the people of Dungarvan, who had elected him, and then tried to “cover his tracks”.
In mitigation, he accepted Forsey had no previous convictions and came from a respectable family.
The judge suspended the final two years of the sentence for five years. Judge Griffin also paid tribute to Forsey’s estranged wife Jenny who, he said, sustained “virulent attacks on her civic duty” while in the witness box.
Forsey, who maintains his innocence, remained stoic through the sentencing, but his partner Karen Morrissey and other supporters broke down as the prison term was handed down.
The court heard Forsey’s marriage broke down after he sent a text meant for Ms Morrissey to his 15-year-old daughter. After the corruption charges came to light he moved to Australia with Ms Morrissey.
He was arrested when he returned to Ireland for a wedding in 2009.
Forsey, of Coolagh Road, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, had pleaded not guilty at Waterford Circuit Criminal Court to six counts of corruption relating to the rezoning of lands outside Dungarvan between August and December 2006.
The court heard Forsey lobbied his fellow councillors extensively to have the lands rezoned.
A vote was later passed to rezone the lands but this was overturned by then minister for the environment John Gormley.
At the sentence hearing yesterday, Forsey took the stand and continued to deny the payments were received as bribes. He said he was lobbying to have the land rezoned to create employment for the area.
He agreed with his senior counsel John Phelan that he was “effectively living a double life” and trying to keep up appearances so he “swallowed his pride” and went to the developer to get a loan.
He admitted this “loan” had never been repaid.
Forsey’s defence counsel presented evidence that he was currently involved in a start-up software company that could create dozens of jobs in Ireland.